


Boredom's Best Remedy is Company

by quadrotriticale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, POV Sam Winchester, POV Second Person, also ive never watched house of cards, because sams god sick telekinesis, but who the fuck am i kidding i dont have standards, i did some rudimentary googling but i know nothing at all, id say this isnt up to my standards, it wasnt meant to be but fuck it i guess, not really canon compliant i guess, o w8, vaguely season 13 ish, yall wanna call this sabriel ill let you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 18:36:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrotriticale/pseuds/quadrotriticale
Summary: “Yeah, he, uh. Didn’t need much encouragement. He’s been through a lot, I guess it’s nice to not have to deal with it for a few hours,” you reply, words feeling a little heavy in your mouth. Maybe you’re more tired than you realize. Maybe the verbal center of your brain just wants to short circuit on you. You suspect it’s some really horrible combination of both that isn't going to go away even if you actually get some sleep. He smiles at you anyway, this easy, lopsided thing that you think looks good on him.“Yeah, he’s tired, too. Definitely needs it,” he agrees, craning his neck to see what you have on your screen. His face lights up a little. “Oh, shit. You started House of Cards? Finally. Do you like it? Tell me everything, I need to know what you think.”





	Boredom's Best Remedy is Company

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to nam. sams autistic and ill fight you tooth and nail on this one folks. am i projecting? you fucking bet! im mass posting right now bc i have three years worth of unposted fic in my google docs so like dont expect this to be a regular thing.  
> ;; cas is tired and should really be allowed to take naps and i think that spn taking sams powers away after the cage is fucking stupid so i have returned them ie i just decided that he never lost them because im god here and fuck you

For the most part, Gabriel is loose and jovial, likes to crack jokes and indulge in the more pleasurable, if less healthy aspects of humanity. You don’t know if he’s always been like this, if he somehow managed to defy the archetype you’ve seen from most of the angels you’ve met and actually be sort of a cool, if super flighty, guy, but you suppose it’s not out of the question. Archangels, and as far as you can tell, seem to have more fleshed out personalities than lesser angels, like God actually took a second to sort out what they were going to be like. Still, sometimes, the way he acts he catches you off guard. The frequency with which he does that is alarming and eyebrow raising, considering he never spends overly long around you, your brother, and Cas. 

Sometimes it’s just the set of his jaw that you find a little off, or the way he speaks will sound too forceful to you. You think he might have been a different person before he ran away from home, you think he might have become so engrossed in his trickster persona that, over millennia, it became almost indistinguishable from who he is by himself, but to be sure of that you'd have to ask him, and you really don't think you're up to doing that. You'd call it invasive, and you don't want to come off that way. You think that maybe you should be scared of him, maybe you should fear his power and the fact that he could wipe you off the face of the Earth if you pissed him off enough, but despite your better judgement, he doesn’t scare you and you don’t think he ever has, even when he was trapping you in TV pocket dimensions and killing your brother to prove a point. You were angry once, you guess, but you don’t think you were ever scared. 

Now, you think, that he’s been forced into this again, now that he’s here and he’s regaining his strength and he’s functioning on some level close to normal, maybe he has to reinvent himself again, maybe what he went through was more damaging than he’ll say, and you’re sure that’s at least part of it, you’ve been through your own extended torture and you get it. You don’t pry, though, you don’t ask. It’s not your business, and although you’d like to help him even if you’re not sure where that impulse comes from, since the part of your brain that operates more on logic informs you that he's been generally terrible to you whenever you encountered him in the past, you don’t try.

You’re drawn to him, a little. You don’t talk about that with anyone and you don’t mention it, because you’re pretty sure it’s not anyone’s issue but your own and you’re pretty sure that, if it was a problem, you’d know already. You like to talk to him even if he is a little obtuse, because sometimes he answers your more pressing questions and sometimes he’ll offer you advice, or clue you into something you weren’t catching, etcetera. You don’t really know what it is with him or why you like to hover around where he is, at least when you know where he is, but you find his presence almost more comforting than you find Dean’s. It’s strange to you, just a little. (Although, it might not have been when you were younger, before your faith lent itself to being gutted by the unconventional and frankly unfortunate circumstances of your life. You still believe, of course, you can’t take something you’ve seen with your own eyes and tell yourself that it doesn’t exist, but you’re not sure that anyone up there actually cares. You’re not sure there’s enough angels up there to care, and you’re very sure God never gave a shit, at least not beyond what he could write himself in to. Gabriel feels a bit different to you, though, but you’re not sure why. You suppose you could ask him, or you could ask Cas if it has something to do with angelic garbage because you think it’s a little bit odd and you think that might be a possibility, but you don’t want to be wrong, so you keep it to yourself.)

Gabriel loiters around the main library and the kitchen most of the time that he isn’t in his room. He eats your food, takes a particular liking to stealing anything Dean happens to leave on the counter or in the fridge rather than stash in his room, and thumbs through books he picks off the shelves. You think he spends a lot of time talking to Castiel, too, although you’re not sure how someone could spend a lot of time talking to Castiel. You don’t get more than a few words and vague hand gestures out of him most days, and neither does Dean, although you think Dean understands him better than you do. (You know Dean has a lot of experience talking to people, namely you, who don’t use a lot of words, or just hit a point where they can’t talk, so you guess adding Castiel’s tendency towards broken sentences and one word answers wasn’t much of a feat for him. You think that Gabriel probably understands him better than both of you combined, but you don’t know and you aren’t going to ask. It’s really not your business.)

He’s taken a fondness to Netflix when he isn’t busy with whatever he happens to be busy with, which may or may not coincide with what you and you brother are busy with, and you know this because he likes to ask you spontaneously if you’ve seen House of Cards, or Vikings, or any number of shows you don’t know how he finds the time to watch until you remember that he doesn’t technically have to live linear, and he also doesn’t really need to sleep (a fact that you’re kind of jealous of. You could get a lot of things done, if your body didn’t demand that you sleep. You also wouldn’t have to deal with nightmares, which you think is a significant bonus, and a point in favor of staying up until you pass out from exhaustion.)

Your observations don’t really have much of a point, you think. It’s half past three in the morning and you’re still awake because of course you are, and you’ve spaced out hard enough that your Netflix is asking if you’re still watching, and you don’t know how long it’s been like that or how long you’ve been sitting in your desk chair in your room. You were going to get work done, because that’s always your plan and you always have something you could be doing, whether it’s digging into the lore about your latest problem or finding something for you and Dean to do, or just generally indulging your proclivity towards collecting completely useless facts about things you find even mildly interesting, but somewhere the pipeline jammed, and you opened Netflix on your computer and spaced. The only thing that knocks out of your accidental trance is shuffling outside your door, which proceeds a knock that you were almost expecting. You know who it is, because Cas doesn't bother you in the middle of the night and Dean tends to call your name in addition to knocking, so you turn to your door and tell your visitor to come in. 

Gabriel enters your room, waves the door closed behind himself, deposits himself unceremoniously on your bed, and crosses his legs. You raise an eyebrow at him. 

“IIIIIII, was bored,” he informs you, all loose limbs and gratuitous hand gestures, “and everyone else is asleep. Even Cas. Seems like you two taught him how great naps are.”

“Yeah, he, uh. Didn’t need much encouragement. He’s been through a lot, I guess it’s nice to not have to deal with it for a few hours,” you reply, words feeling a little heavy in your mouth. Maybe you’re more tired than you realize. Maybe the verbal center of your brain just wants to short circuit on you. You suspect it’s some really horrible combination of both that isn't going to go away even if you actually get some sleep. He smiles at you anyway, this easy, lopsided thing that you think looks good on him. 

“Yeah, he’s tired, too. Definitely needs it,” he agrees, craning his neck to see what you have on your screen. His face lights up a little. “Oh, shit. You started House of Cards? Finally. Do you like it? Tell me everything, I need to know what you think.” 

You laugh a little. “I’m going to have to go back and rewatch it,” you start, pausing briefly to get your words in order. It’s hard to get them out of your mouth, but you manage alright. It’s a bit exhausting. “I spaced halfway through an episode. I like what I remember though.” He nods sagely, does a little flick of his hand to shut your laptop before you can do it yourself. It’s kind of weird, and you know he’s an actual archangel and telekinesis is little more than a parlor trick for him, but the casual way in which he uses it sets you at ease more than you’d like to admit. You don’t feel like you can really use yours, especially not around your brother, so the fact that he uses his like he's just flexing his fingers is just… good, you think. It’s good. 

“It’s pretty good,” he muses, “lots of drama. I mean, predictable drama, but whatever. It’s good. Man, I missed TV.” He flops over backwards onto your bed, and you watch him snatch a pen from your desk and spin it in the air. You guess that qualifies as fidgeting, since you do something similar yourself when you’re alone. 

“Did you want something?” you ask, and you know it’s a little abrupt. You hope you don’t sound rude. “I mean, besides…” and you don’t finish that thought because you can’t get the words past the brick in your mouth, just give a sort of dismissive hand wave to finish your sentence. 

“Not really,” he responds, and you kind of envy the ease with which he speaks. “Like I said, I was just bored, and you’re the only one still up. Since, I guess, your brother crashed, finally, and mine decided to take a little siesta.” 

“You could do that?” you respond, which, again, you hope doesn’t sound rude.

He give you this almost apologetic smile. “Nah, I dream. Better to not, right now.” And all you say to that is ‘Oh.’ You get it. That’s why you’re up, too. You nod, and he continues spinning your pen in the air. You want to ask him why archangels are so much more like humans than regular angels, but you can’t form the words, can’t get them past your teeth, so you just frown a little, absently swivel back and forth in your chair. You want to ask him if he’s okay, too, but you think you know the answer and the words are trapped in your head somewhere, disconnected from your mouth. 

He proceeds to babble at you about the latest show he’s been binging, explains the plot in detail and tells you about which characters he likes best. You listen although you don’t provide much of any commentary, and he doesn’t pester you for responses. You think he gets that you can’t, which is a nice change of pace from pretty much everyone who isn’t someone you consider family (although the more time you spend with Gabriel, the closer he hovers to that category.) He fidgets while he talks, which has the probably unintended side effect of letting you bend and unbend a paperclip that you float in front of you while you listen, and it’s a comfortable couple hours. You let him chat your ear off, don’t ask him if he’s alright, and he doesn’t look at you funny while you indulge your abilities and doesn’t ask you if you are. His presence is soothing to you, and you think you’re alright. 

Your words don’t really come back to you, so when he excuses himself for breakfast, even though you know he doesn’t actually need to eat and just does it because he likes the taste, you just give him a little wave and a small, easy smile. You decide that, maybe, you could use some sleep. It’s about six in the morning by now, and you think you can get away with sleeping until 10 before your brother starts mocking you, so you set an alarm on your phone for then and settle into bed, flick the lights off with a careful wave of your hand. You dread your dreams, you always do, but you don’t dream this time. You’re tired when you wake up, of course you are, but you sleep all the way through, and you feel a little lighter than you usually do, so it’s alright. You can always remedy exhaustion with caffeine.


End file.
